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on Evolutionary Economics |
| By: | Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio; Özak, Ömer |
| Abstract: | This research explores the emergence and prevalence of economic specialization and trade in pre-modern societies. It advances the hypothesis, and establishes empirically that population diversity had a positive causal effect on economic specialization and trade. Based on a novel ethnic level dataset combining geocoded ethnographic and genetic data, this research exploits the exogenous variation in population diversity generated by the ``Out-of-Africa'' migration of anatomically modern humans to causally establish the positive effect of population diversity on economic specialization and the emergence of trade-related institutions, which, in turn, facilitated the historical formation of states. Additionally, it provides suggestive evidence that regions historically inhabited by pre-modern societies with high levels of economic specialization have a larger occupational heterogeneity and are more developed today. |
| Keywords: | Economic Specialization, Division of Labor, Trade, State Formation, Population Diversity, Economic Development, Population Heterogeneity, Genetic Diversity, Diversity, Emergence of State, Persistence, Out of Africa |
| JEL: | D74 F1 N0 N4 O1 O4 Z10 |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:69565&r=evo |
| By: | Polterovich, Victor |
| Abstract: | It is shown that the evolution of modern developed societies leads to a decrease in the significance of both centralized governance and economic competition, while the role of collaboration mechanisms is being strengthened. This process is supported by cultural changes - by increasing trust, by internalization of the honesty norms, and thus free-rider problem is mitigated. Collectivism and individualism in their extreme forms are being replaced by the culture of constructive interactions and compromises. This cultural transformation creates new institutions and the same time supports them. Thus, both market and state failures are being overcome. |
| Keywords: | collaboration, competition, collectivism, individualism, bankruptcy laws, institutional evolution, antitrust laws |
| JEL: | B00 B4 B52 N00 P11 |
| Date: | 2015–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:64375&r=evo |
| By: | Choy , James (Department of Economics, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | I construct a model of religion as an institution that provides community enforcement of contracts within families. Family altruism implies that family members cannot commit to reporting broken contracts to the community, so the community must monitor contract performance as well as inflicting punishment. The community has less information than family members, and so community monitoring is inefficient. I provide evidence from a study of Amish institutions, including qualitative evidence from sociological accounts and quantitative evidence from a novel dataset covering nearly the entire Amish population of Holmes county, Ohio. I find that 1) Amish households are not unitary, 2) the Amish community helps to support families by inflicting punishments on wayward family members, 3) without the community Amish people have difficulty committing to punishing family members, and 4) Amish community membership strengthens family ties, while otherwise similar religious communities in which there is less need for exchange between family members have rules that weaken family ties. My model has implications for understanding selection into religious practice and the persistence of culture. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Economics, Non-market Production, Public Goods, Religion |
| JEL: | D13 H4 Z10 Z12 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1114&r=evo |
| By: | Uwe Cantner; Ivan Savin; Simone Vannuccini |
| Abstract: | The pure model of replicator dynamics though providing important insights in the evolution of markets has not found much of empirical support. This paper extends the model to the case of firms vertically integrated in value chains. We show that i) by taking value chains into account, the replicator dynamics may revert its effect. In these regressive developments of market selection, firms with low fitness expand because of being integrated with highly fit partners, and the other way around; ii) allowing partner’s switching within a value chain illustrates that periods of instability in the early stage of industry life-cycle may be the result of an ’optimization’ of partners within a value chain providing a novel and simple explanation to the evidence discussed by Mazzucato (1998); iii) there are distinct differences in the contribution to market selection between the layers of a value chain, causing strategic advantages to firms in partnering. |
| Keywords: | innovation, replicator dynamics, returns to scale, value chain. |
| JEL: | C63 D24 L14 O32 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2016-09&r=evo |